Klamath Tribes’ Aquatics Program

Blog #12

Klamath Tribes’ Aquatics Program

Today we talked about a general overview of the Klamath River Basin setting, what it looks like, the geography, and a bit about the species that are important biologically and from a cultural perspective as well. The Klamath River Basin, which is one of two river systems that cut through the Cascade Range. They are the Colombia and Klamath rivers. We talked about The Klamath Basin Project (1906) when settlers began to arrive in the region, eager to raise crops and livestock. It was in 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the National Reclamation Act, which made extensive agriculture in the upper Klamath Basin possible by authorizing the reclamation of swamps and lakes to increase irrigable acreage. In other words, congress said take this wasted, awful land and turn it into something useful. They didn’t mind that there were people already using it, but the decision was made to get rid of these lakes. The two lakes used to be 5-6 times the size of Upper Klamath lake. So, at one point, this area used to have a vastly large amount of water. In 2001, after a winter of drought, the Endangered Species Act forced the Bureau of Reclamation to reduce irrigation of Klamath Project farmer to meet the water needs of the wild Coho salmon and species of the Upper Basin suckers. Originally there were about 13 native fish species in the Upper Klamath Basin, 7 of which occurred only in that area, which is pretty rare. Some of those fish are the C’waam-Lost River Sucker and the Koplu-Shortnose Sucker. The C’waam is very long-lived, the oldest ever found was 55 years old. They are roughly 32-36 inches and 15 pounds.  The Shortnose sucker is also very long-lived at 33 years old for the oldest ever found. This one gets 18-22 inches and maybe 5-6 pounds. It was interesting when one of my colleagues asked how do you age a fish. Fish have three pairs of otoliths located behind the brain, each with a different shape, that heal the fish with hearing and balance. The most common method of age validation is a marginal increment analysis. The marginal increment is the measurement from the last annulus to the margin (or edge of the otolith). You can also age fish with scales. The fish are significant to the tribes because the winters are fairly long and at times pretty rough.  By the time winter sets in, they have about 3-4 months where they relied on their stored foods and amazingly enough every beginning of spring, these fish come up the river out of the lakes and spawn in huge numbers. That was an opportunity for the Native Americans to capture food after a very long winter. In 1988 both of those fish were listed in the endangered species act which gave them federal protections, although the tribes do have the right to fish them, they voluntarily stop fishing for them other than for a very ceremonial purpose. The C’waam ceremony occurs each year after the first snow in March, in Chiloquin, Oregon. Each year the C’waam swims up the Sprague River to spawn. This ritual preserves the tradition of welcoming the fish back into the rivers, and by continuing this ceremony the Klamath Tribes are ensuring the survival of both species and their Tribal traditions. Unfortunately, now we see roughly 40,000 total fish for both species and are old. Most of the fish were born in either 1993 or 1995, so no babies have survived since then. The reason is that they are endemic, which means they have little ability to adapt to environmental change. The adults are a bit tougher than the juveniles, they can swim in the lake and tough it out, they go up the Williamson river to spawn, and the eggs hatch, the larvae drift down the river, and by October they are gone because the water quality of the lake has gotten so bad that the juveniles can’t make it through. The issue is to make sure the lake doesn’t die every fall, which means they have to figure out ways to clean out the lake itself and water that is coming in. Also, a lot of the land is privately owned and it is a very contentious political environment, so getting cooperative landowners who are willing to fence off 3 or 4 miles to help maintain the vegetation to grow back is very difficult.